How to Use This Book

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Like any authors, we would be flattered if you read this book from cover to cover, from beginning to end. If you do, you ll find a planned progression from essential background information to comprehensive how-to techniques and a vision of the future. If you are unfamiliar with SANs, this is the recommended approach.

However, there are no doubt many calls on your time, and you may not be able to conveniently read all of this book. If that s the case, use it as a reference.

For example, if the development of storage doesn t interest you, or you are already familiar with the fundamentals of Fibre Channel, skip those chapters. To explore topologies or review Hewlett-Packard SAN products, go straight to those chapters.

If you are in a very great hurry, read the compact summary below.

Chapter 1: The Storage Area Network. We introduce and define the SAN, establish its value, and describe its component technologies.

Chapter 2: A Brief History of Storage. This chapter contains a chronology of storage, from the Big Bang (actually, a little later) up to today s non-SAN solutions. There is value in seeing the progression of storage innovations that brought us to the SAN.

Chapter 3: A Brief Review of Fibre Channel. Fibre Channel is the enabling technology of the SAN. SANs won t work without it. This chapter explains the significant concepts, presented in as compact a form as possible.

Chapter 4: The SAN in Detail. This chapter explores an extensive array of device and connectivity options, and brings out the advantages and disadvantages of each.

Chapter 5: Managing the SAN. The best SAN is a well-managed SAN. This chapter describes HP management and monitoring software for devices and SANs.

Chapter 6: Backup and Restore. Despite the reliability of a SAN, you still need to plan for backups and restores , offsite storage, and disaster recovery scenarios (when in doubt, make a copy). This chapter covers those topics.

Chapter 7: Industry Implementations. The SAN is not a theoretical construct; it exists in many business sectors and can dramatically increase efficiency. You ll also see that some SAN-based data management techniques, such as backup or disaster recovery, cross all major industry sectors.

Chapter 8: Hewlett-Packard SAN Products. This chapter catalogs the principal SAN products available from Hewlett-Packard and shows how they can be implemented in your SAN.

Chapter 9: An Interview with Duane Zitzner. We ask a senior HP executive to describe HP s positioning and commitment to SAN technology in times to come.

Chapter 10: Future Developments. We look to the future, exploring emerging applications that will use SANs. We offer a final word about SANs.

Glossary: A glossary can be one of the most useful parts of a book. We have included a wealth of SAN and Fibre Channel terms.

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